rabble.ca Canadian federal election blog

The ballot question - protecting Canadian jobs

By Dave Coles

The financial crisis is not simply about banking.  There are many companies that face imminent collapse because they will not be able to maintain operations without refinancing their capital structure.

The forest industry is the front line in this crisis.  Forestry has been the industrial sector most affected by the mortgage crisis and deflation in the US housing market.  The nationalization of US financial institutions and mortgage companies, even before the $700 billion bailout, addressed the housing market, and hence forestry.  What has the Canadian government done?

But the present crisis goes far beyond the US housing market.  Leveraged private equity in Canada is weighted down by billions in debt.  The private equity buyout of Canada’s largest company, BCE, was $58 billion, of which $33 billion was debt.  Our largest forest company, AbitibiBowater, is compelled to refinance $1.1 billion in short term debt by July 09.  If the financial crisis and a recession in the Canadian economy renders it impossible for these debts to be managed, there will be a wholesale destruction of productive assets in Canada, and a wave of unemployment.

This week my union released a poll by Nanos Research that showed that 60% of Canadians approve of direct financial assistance by government to prevent the failure of major forest companies.  In Quebec, this approval rate is over 80%.   I am not advocating corporate give aways – this is about keeping Canadian production up and running during a recession in which no one yet can see the bottom.

Most Canadians understand implicitly the uncharted economic territory we are entering.  That is why Conservative support is plummeting, and why the foregone conclusion of two weeks ago that Stephen Harper would re re-elected is now very much in play.  In the next seven days, we need a national discussion, worker to worker and neighbour to neighbour, about the need for government to do what the financial markets are unable to do  - to protect Canadian jobs and productive capacity.

Canadians are talking about the economy and they want a government that will act during the coming recession.  That is why Harper may lose this election.

Stopping Harper - Newfoundland style

By Dave Coles

The key to blocking a Conservative majority can be seen here in Newfoundland, where I have been for the past two days.  It is a straight forward strategy – challenge Stephen Harper on the issue of trust and leadership, and make it clear to workers who are on their side on the jobs issue.

In Grand Falls, Newfoundland, AbitibiBowater has a restructuring plan that will cost another 170 jobs.  The union opposes this plan, so does Danny Williams and the provincial government.  They have told the company that protecting jobs is the cost of doing business in Newfoundland.

I just left a VOCM radio interview where I took delight in telling Newfoundlanders that Stephen Harper’s position is that there will be no government support for the newsprint industry, and that people who lose their jobs can go to Fort McMurray.

Meanwhile Danny Williams says that he has 43 of 44 provincial Conservative MLAs signed on to his “anything but Conservative” position on the federal election.

I am not a pollster, but talking to our members, there is no choice between Harper and Williams.  They know who is on their side, and it ain’t Steve.

The Conservatives have 3 seats in Newfoundland.  The way it looks to me, you can strike most or all of them from the Tory column.  One of those Tory seats – St. John’s East – could go to labour lawyer and former NDP provincial leader Jack Harris who is coming out of retirement to challenge for this seat that he held in the 1980s.  The buzz I am hearing is that Harris has a lot of support.

Time to get out of the comfort zone

By Dave Coles

It is a cold shower on the morning of the election.  Like most of you, I didn’t spend my summer focusing on Stephen Harper.  Now I find out that Canadians are “getting comfortable” with Harper and that he is close to a majority.

It is wake-up time, folks.  Get out of the comfort zone.

How is it that after all we know of the Reform Party-Conservative Party, and with all we know about Stephen Harper and his right wing agenda that we now face the imminent danger of Conservative majority rule?

Clearly, Dion and the Liberals are mostly responsible because they are such a lousy opposition.  But I think that progressives in English Canada and Quebec must also recognize that we have allowed Canadians to become too comfortable with Harper and his party.

Both Jack Layton and Gilles Duceppe have said that they will now make Harper and his policies the target of the campaign.  I could not be more pleased.  However, my view is that it will be difficult to do that unless there is a different kind of passionate, straight talk about life and death issues that make people very uncomfortable.

After the bloodiest month for Canadians since the start of the Afghanistan war, a clear yes or no to that disastrous war has to be foremost of those issues.  But from climate change to health care, Canadians need to see Harper’s core social values laid bare.

My guess is that downtown Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver have Stephen Harper more or less figured out.   The battleground will be the industrial heartlands of the country where manufacturing jobs have been decimated.  Among them are 32,000 forest industry workers who have lost their jobs during the last two years of the Harper government.  They aren’t interested much in policy debates; they want to know who is on their side.

It may be that it is unions, women’s groups and environmentalists that are in the best position to shake Canadians out of their comfort zone with Stephen Harper, and we don’t have any time to waste.